Once Jack heard him poking vigorously in the water with a pole, and muttering to himself.
"Want to take a lunch off me porpoise, is it ye'd be afther doin', ye sly ould thafe of the worrld?" Jimmy was saying, as he punched vigorously.
"What is it?" asked Jack, looking over the side of the _Tramp_; as he happened to be up just then, to find out what his shipmate meant by getting out long before the first streak of daylight was due.
"Sure, it's the bally ould crabs; they do be tryin' to nibble at me fish; and it kapes me busy shooing the same away," Jimmy answered back.
"But what's the use bothering, since we don't expect to eat the thing?" asked the other.
"Yes," said Jimmy, quickly; "but they say ivery little bit helps; and wouldn't I be the sad gossoon, now, if me fish weighed just the same as Nick's, with some missing where thim sassy big crabs had had a breakfast. Sure, I want all I got, till we weigh the beauty. Afther that they can have it all, for what I care."
"Oh! that's where the shoe pinches, does it?" chuckled Jack. "Well, perhaps you'd better sit up, and keep watch, Jimmy. But please don't shake the boat so much, and wake me again. It's only three o'clock, with the old moon near the eastern horizon. Me to bed again for another snooze."
When morning came Jimmy blandly informed Jack that he had actually spent the balance of the night with that pole in his hands, every now and then stirring the water in the vicinity of his prize.
"And I do be thinkin'," he added, triumphantly, "that the crabs niver got aven a teenty bit of me bully ould fish. Now to rig up that balance once more, and settle the question once for all."
"Now, just you hold your horses, there," spoke up Nick, shaking his head grimly. "You're wrong, that's what. Even if your old porpoise does happen to be a little heavier than my splendid jewfish, don't you think for a minute I'm going to give up the ship. I'll be warm on your trail, old chap, to the last gasp!"
"Hear! hear!" cried Josh, clapping his hands in a manner which was calculated to encourage both stubborn contestants. "I'm backing Nick for a game one. He's got the real bulldog grit, and don't you forget it, boys! And even if Jimmy wins this time, he'll have to watch out, or he'll find himself left in the lurch."